#180 Hiking Yinghanling Trail, Taipei

Transcript

Alrighty, this is part two of my ascent up the mountain to see the coolest view of Taipei that, I mean, I guess when I went up the peak at the National Park, it was misty and foggy. So I couldn't see from up there. Maybe that view was comparable, but I doubt it. I feel like this has got to be the best view of Taipei from a mountain top. It's nuts. So last episode, I figured out how to get to the entrance of this mountain through the rain. To the intense, like, debilitating heat, but I made it. So now part two, mountain ascent time, now, or go. What's better, now or go. It doesn't matter. Take your pick. Let's go.

Alright, I made it. So at least it's very clear when you get to the beginning of this place, because there's parking, a bunch of scooters and stuff. Apparently, there was some kind of information center. If I went farther, there was a washroom, which was nice. And this is the first. Yeah, some water.

As a guy who just passed me in a Samsung shirt, I wonder if he was Korean or if he just loves Samsung. But speaking of that, there was a washroom, which was nice. And I think this is the first that I've used a squat toilet twice today. I believe this is my first time using two squat toilets on one day, because I used one at the subway station as well. And in this one, it turns out there was toilet papers. One of these things like happens in Korea sometimes where there was communal toilet paper out in the main area, but I didn't notice. In the squat toilet room, the toilet paper roll was empty. So I needed to prepare ahead of time and bring toilet paper in with me. But luckily, I just have some wipes stashed away. And that's just a little interesting thing I've been noticing as I go along, is that I still got like an array of Korean products. My little wipes are Korean. I was using a convenience store bag that was from a Korean chain, GS25. My suntan lotion is Korean. My unbelievably, I'm getting super close to the end of my North American deodorant. But then I'll be switching over to Korean deodorant. My toothpaste is Korean. My suntan lotion and my aftershave is Korean. I don't think I have anything Japanese left, but I mean, I was in Korea for six months. I don't know what I would have had that was last that long.

But luckily, I was prepared. So it was all good. And yeah, this is just a stone steps all the way up. I think getting to that entrance without taking a scooter or a bus, that was the actual adventure just getting to the start. This should be no significant issue. I can already basically see the crest of the top. This is a pretty short little stretch from here. I mean, still steps straight up. You know, it's not easy, but it's not hard.

I was just thinking too, because yeah, it was just having to use the old toilet. You know, the trick with the squat toilet is make sure you pull your pants down all the way to your ankles or else when you squat, your pockets will turn upside down. But yeah, it just made me realize that my pockets in particular are still, they just have that gross damp, the musty smell.

But I made the mistake because I didn't realize that, you know, washing my clothes would make them worse rather than better. Both of my pairs of pants, my only two pairs of pants in all the world are in this condition. So I just realized like, damn, what am I going to do? Because I always swapped, you know, when I do laundry.

But that means if I do laundry, I can only clean one pair of pants because I got to wear a pair of pants.

To go to the laundromat. So then if I put on the clean pants, then I'll still have to swap into the dirty pants next time I do laundry, so that won't work. So really, I guess I just need to keep wearing these gross pants. And I don't know, I guess I have no choice but to just do two sets of laundry back to back. That's a bit expensive to just do laundry just for one pair of pants, but I just don't really have an option.

Oh, unless I guess I could just go to Daiso. I don't know, but if I go like buy a pair of shorts to only wear once, I mean I could probably get a pair of shorts there for $3. But that seems weird. That's just so fucking annoying. I wish washing your clothes would just make them clean. That would be nice. 5:00 That would solve a lot of these issues. But I don't know, nothing I can do about that. I suppose I could try washing my pants at home and then just take them to the laundromat and only use the dryer. That's an option. That would be a test, I guess. Is it the washing machine that's the problem or is it just the drying? Whatever, who cares, so boring. The boring administration of laundry. I just got to break in the trees and I can see out across God's creation. I can see the city way in the distance. A bit hazy as things are around here. But very beautiful and all I'm concerned about is my weird smell and pants.

But anyway, seeing as I'm podcasting while I'm walking uphill, never a great policy, so let's just get to the tap.

Man, this is kind of nice. I mean, I have no idea how far up I am, how far there is to go. I do see markers once in a while but I don't know how many they're supposed to be.

But this is kind of good where the other day that I like shocked my system just by going up the start hiking again.

It really hurt. My body was like fuck, my heart was beating. I was sweating like crazy. I really felt like my body was freaking the fuck out.

Where this? Yes, really amazing how fast you get back into the swing. Like a half an hour of just walking endlessly upstairs. Sounds bad when you put it that way. But I really feel okay. I mean, I was like, I could pull out the fucking recorder. I can talk while I do this. You know, he might hear me breathing a little but it's amazing. I'm like amazed how quick I got back into the swing of this. This is no problem. And it's funny that walking up the gradual incline of the road. That's what was doing me in. That used to happen in Busan as well. Just the overall grind of a gradual incline. That just murdered me. I hated it. Where once there's a distinct uphill path or in this case stairs because it really are stairs the whole way. Oh, I believe this must be the top. I see something. Your body just gets locked into that mode of like, all right, here's what we're doing. Just walk upstairs. I mean, I guess people in the gym do this, right? Like the stair master is half an hour a long time to walk upstairs. It sounds along. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just a little proud of myself. This is going to be a distinct sign of when I really am getting old.

When this is no longer easy to do. But I've been passing plenty of people on this path that are older than me.

So that day is not coming anytime soon as long as I keep myself in order. Here's a little building. I don't know. It's just so neat to see just endless stairs ahead of you. I know it's like a nightmare kind of. It's like, wow, just there's no end to these stairs. And to not be worried about it, to not even be concerned, I'm just like, that's fine.

I don't even feel bad. I can do that. Okay, this is like a midway point. Some tables and stuff. Oh, I say that, but...

I think Hanlon, 913 meters. John Chan, 1600 meters. Is that where I was going? Well, time to put my money where my mouth is because... Here's more stairs, literally, as far as I can see. They just disappear into the sky. They just go up and up and up.

Yeah, I don't know. It's nice. Obviously, obviously, it's effort and work. But it feels okay. Where, yeah, the other day, I swear to God, after like 10 or 15 steps, I was... In wrestling, they call it getting blown up, you know, and you just have to just stop and just suck air for a while. It happens to wrestlers with bad cardio.

That happened to me for sure. And then a mere few days later, it is not happening to me this time. That is awesome.

However, I did see a guy. You know, everyone else is walking. I did see one guy jogging and it's like, okay, Kent, I get it. I get it. You're in very good shape. Congratulations. 10:00 I'm trying not to think about that guy. That would happen on the grass grind as well. Which yeah, the grass grind was brutal. I don't know how long it's supposed to take, but it took me like two hours. I was in very bad shape though. When I did that, hike in Vancouver. But yeah, there were always people jogging on that trail too. Suns of bitches.

But yeah, I got flat feet in a bad knee. I can't do that shit. But I can do this. I can walk. That's good enough. I will be the master of walking.

Wow. Man, the view up here is insane. So I haven't gotten to the technical peak yet. I'm still hoping that'll be a sign up there to tell me how high it is. But there was a split right at the end. 150 more meters to the top or 20 meters to the scenic overlook, which is basically just looking out toward the ocean. You can only see a bit of the city, but fuck me, it looks good. There's one other fella here with me. Only one though, I'm surprised because there's a lot of people on this trail.

But I guess they're just heading straight up. See, I don't want to talk too loud because I'll interrupt this guy. But yeah, this is insane, man. It's insane.

This is such a good view. This is crazy. And you know, it's just some city, some shoreline, infinite ocean. You know, I don't know as far as I guess there's not a lot to describe, but it's fucking awesome. It's just a good fucking view, man. Just a real good view. This sun is shining through some clouds this time of day. Got some god rays going on in this piece. Yeah, that shit is worth it. That is way worth it. And I mean, I'm just, I'm still I'm just proud of myself that, yeah, I guess I hadn't internalized what the names were. So the closer peak is the one I was heading to all along. Ying Hanglin, 150 more meters. Let's go. Let's go finish this up that other one. I don't know what that was. Some other peak.

John Shan, that's like some other peak in this mountain range. That's like a couple kilometers away. That's a whole different adventure. That's not what I was ever trying to do, but I just kept seeing the signs and I didn't remember which one was which. Thankfully, though, that's not where I'm going because that one's far away.

Yeah, this view is amazing. And yeah, just I love this proof that all of this hiking has done me good. Because back in my like in my 30s, I got like visibly in shape for a while.

And for like two or three years, I was like, I had muskles. I could put on a tight shirt and it looked awesome. Oh, fuck, there's even a place I can put my empty coffee bottle down at the bottom. There was also one a recycle bin. So I got rid of a water bottle down there and now I'm getting rid of the coffee bottle here. Oh, nice. I don't have to carry my bottles around. That's delightful.

Oh, here's another outlook, another view. But yeah, it was always nice because I was visibly in shape for a while and then I really fucked up my shoulder. And that's when I realized how bad my schooliosis isn't such and such. But it's nice that I'm like clearly in shape now, just not visibly. You know, my upper body is still just skinny guy. I'm afraid I never did manage to get back to having a visibly nice physique. But yeah, I've never had cardio like this ever in my life that I just walked up that has no problem. You know, my legs are like a little, I don't know, sores not even the right word. I feel fucking fine. There's no problem at all. So yeah, this view is looking out to the east, so I'm looking across the river. I can't quite see the shoreline I walked on before, but almost.

And I hear some people, so the peak must really be close. I should just go there, I suppose.

Yeah, it's just a good feeling. It's a good feeling to be physically fit. I like it. I can't do a fucking push-ups to save my life anymore. But I mean, that's the thing, I guess, when I was visibly in shape. I mean, it was nice. I could do push-ups, but who cares? Like, when in life do you need to do 15:00 push-ups? Never. It wasn't like functionally useful. It was ornamental. I'm just washing my hands. There's a little washroom here and everything. Like, yeah, this place is all set.

Yeah, it was ornamental fitness. Where now, and just to look at me, it's like, ah, look at Joe Skinny. But I've never been in this good shape in my life. And I just walked all the way up this fucking mountain. Steps after steps after steps. And it's like, I don't give a fuck. I don't give a sweet fuck. Not hard at all. With the caveat that I went very slow. People definitely passed me, but hey, man, it's not a fucking race. Like, that's what I think is neat, I guess, though. Is, yeah, might be going slow. But it's like, it feels like a super power. Now, I'm just going up more steps just to be able to go up and feel like you're just walking basically. Just more or less feeling like you're walking normally. I don't know. It's just cool. I've never been able to do this before. This is the value of having mountains all over the place.

Because, yeah, even when I was doing the exercise, doing the push-ups, doing the pull-ups, doing the fucking barbells, all this fucking shit, my cardio was garbage. It was terrible. I could never record a podcast while I'm walking upstairs. You kidding? It's unthinkable. And now I can, I suppose if I could do both. But yeah, I don't know. Won't you injure yourself? It's a bad scene, youngens. My shoulder hurts just thinking about it. It's just kind of not worth it.

Not worth the risk of re-injury. And I don't have the patience to do, you know, the yoga type stuff that would be safer. All right, here's the top. Now let's seek around and see if we can find a number. Oh, and a dog. I got to presume this dog belongs to somebody, right? It's no way there's a stray dog who just lives on top of the mountain. That'd be a little much. A couple dogs. Who knows? And a third dog, but that one definitely belongs to somebody.

I was actually on a leash. Revolutionary. It's also some big-ass spiders on the way up here too, but I think they were just gioro spiders, but they sure were fucking big.

Here's another view, motherfucker. Wow, that one might be even better actually. That's why nobody was at the other view. Okay, this has got to be the top. You got a number for me? 616. So I did overshoot. Because to be honest, I thought it was like 800, and it took my estimate down to 700. It's actually 600. Oh, this is actually frightening. Yeah, this is the best view of all. Now I can actually see the waterfront. Yeah, that's where I walked the other day. I walked along that beach and then along that sea wall. But yeah, this is a platform that is near enough a cliff side that I feel this in my lower gut and in my balls. This feels scary. And then if you go to the other side though, you can see, holy, this is nuts. Wow, yeah, this is a nearly 360 panorama. This is crazy. Whoa, yeah, you can see I haven't explored enough of Taiwan yet. I can see shit I've never been to. Although it does seem to just be mountains lined up with where I am. So I'm guessing I can functionally see all of it. That's pretty much Taipei right there. Sure as hazy though. That's a downer. Oh, this is too high up. I'm scared.

I'm backing away from the edge. It's just as good of a view from 10 feet back. I don't need to be next to the fucking next to the railing. That is scary. And then across from me is the original plan of the National Park. Yeah, it ain't so big. I mean, when you can just see the whole thing, yeah, that's kind of fucked up. There's Taipei to my right. There's the National Park with the mountains and they're high enough that actually they have some cloud cover that this mountain does not have because they go up to a little over a thousand. And this is only 600. 20:00 But then yeah, it just slopes down and there's the ocean and there's the edge of fucking Taiwan. That's fucking crazy. It kind of doesn't look real. Again, it's high enough up because I guess like Goonsan was 400. So this is 200 meters higher up than that. It's got that Mr. Rodgers look, you know, we're at the point where it looks like I'm in an airplane. Except there's no streets from where I am. I can't really see cars. There's an expressway on the other side of the river. But on this side of the river, yeah, they're in shit. It's just some buildings and a lot of forest. I can't see any little cars driving because you really need the little cars to get the full Mr. Rodgers effect. That's what makes it look like you're looking at a toy city.

Unfortunately, though, now we're at the awkward point of I was kind of hoping like, hey, maybe they'll be an alternate route down. But there is not. I just have to go right back the way I came. And there's the eternal struggle of trying to go downhill without injuring myself. It's very hard to pace yourself on the way down, but it's also getting dark. So I can't stay up here forever. So yeah, now I'm in that weird midpoint. How long do I took all this time to get here? Yeah, it's six o'clock. It's going to get dark in an hour. It's going to get pretty dark. I better not linger because that'll just cause me to rush my way down.

But anyway, this is really good and this is very much worth it. It might be good to take a bus to that beginning of the trail. But yeah, super worth it. This is beautiful.

Oh, here's one last thing while I'm up here. As I just realized, like, oh yeah, there's the bridge I crossed. It's very distinctive. Red bridge. See, I'm not exactly sure where the subway station is, but it's somewhere in that vicinity. So then yeah, I walked down along the river there. And thank God that heat at that point in the day. I mean, it's not even remotely hot anymore. It's gotten actually kind of cool. It's very windy up here. Not very sunny at all. Yeah, I walked across that bridge and almost died. And then down through there somewhere, there's like a little smattering of real buildings. And then yeah, they turn into farm type very low to the ground buildings. And then it's just trees. And I was walking all through there and I don't know where. So whatever that other peak is though, they were pointing me at. I don't know because anything I can see from here is smaller. Where I guess, you know, it didn't say the other ones were higher at all. It just said it was farther away. It could be maybe the one I kept seeing from the back of the mountain where there's like this one really sheer peak. Maybe that was it. But whatever it is, I can't imagine it's better than this. This one is primo. But yeah, I just thought that was neat to see the bridge. And it's like, oh, yeah, there it is, man. That's the walk I did. Where's my Airbnb? That may be too much. That's too much for me to determine yet because it all just sinks into a blur of Taipei when you don't have distinct water-based landmarks. Or what about the sulfur spring when I tried to get to that? Because that was Beto Station. It's over there somewhere. And I was walking just toward these mountains. But yeah, I don't know. It's too much of a mess. Can't tell. Don't know. It doesn't look that bad from here. You know, it doesn't look that severe. It looks like a pretty gradual incline up and up and up and up to the mountains. But once you're actually there, it's a lot more jagged and weird than it seems. I guess it's just the trees. The trees just smooth it out to make it all look normal. Well, I just realized I've been standing right by the edge of this while I'm talking. I'm talking. Made me take my mind off it. And it just suddenly occurred to me. Whoops. Don't forget. You're scared of heights. It hit. All right. I'm going to get going now because it's actually getting pretty dark. So I can start making my way down. But yeah, 10 out of 10. A plus. 616 meters.

Actually, I mean, these people, yeah, these people aren't concerned about getting down. They're just hanging out. They're partying. Oh, yeah, they're drinking. But actually, now that I think about it, I'm quite sure I saw light poles on the way up here. So yeah, maybe that's maybe it's no biggie. Maybe even if it does get dark, this, I mean, it is really well developed. These stone steps go all the way up. So there's probably lights on this path. I can probably get down to at least where I can catch a bus. I probably don't need to worry. But anyway, still, still time to go. Oh, yeah, here we go. Here's the light. A light already on, even though it's still 25:00 quite daylighty, but it's going to get dark fast. Yeah, cool. That confirms that. There's lights. There's lights on this trail. So I mean, hey, at the very least, that's a good excuse for me not to. Because that seems to be a lot of times how I injure myself on the way down from places is because I'm kind of hurrying because it's going to get dark. No need, man. No fucking need. Take your time. Take your time.

All right, I'm on the way down. I'm like a third of the way down. And yeah, there's tons of lights. All kinds of lights. It kind of reminds me of the Moontan Trail, except the lights are, I don't know, I think they're designed better. They don't seem to be blinding me, but it's also not fully dark yet. But there's still lots of people coming up, I guess, is what I wanted to mention. Why I popped back in.

I don't know what time this closes up for the day. If it does, I assume there's a closing time. But it's not soon, you know, like people are like quite a few people still on their way up. No worries there. And I guess this just ties into my first little hiking experience where the first thing I noticed was that the hiking trails here were super duper well maintained, you know? Like in Japan, this would be like, good luck, asshole, good fucking luck. And then South Korea was way more developed and well sign posted and stuff for hiking. But I don't remember a ton of nighttime stuff. I don't know, I'll cast my mind back, but you know, besides the obvious, with the Moontan Trail and that one didn't really work, it just kind of blinded you. But yeah, this ties in with the other hike that I did where I was like, wow, this is a super well developed hike with tons of signage and everything is so well marked and so well maintained. And yeah, this definitely fits in with that. This is so much so. I mean, again, these like stone steps all the way up and not like stone, fume into the side of the mountain type of stone, like just for real steps, basically. And yeah, just really well lit so much so that yeah, like a mom and her son just went by earlier on the way up still neat. Yeah, I was a little concerned about getting stranded up there, but uh, so far, so far the streak of hiking in Taiwan being super, super well set up for convenience, for navigation and for not getting stranded in the woods at night, 10 out of 10.

I did definitely though see a dog who was by itself, no question. But I guess that kind of makes sense too. I mean, it seems a little strange for a wild dog to live this high up to live 600 meters in the sky. But if this is, I mean, this is obviously a very well-traveled area.

Lots of people come in here. I guess if you're just a dog living off handouts, you know, there's worse places you could be. And yeah, they had a water tap near the summit. To get water for your dogs, if you're bringing your dog up here with you, say yeah, come to think of it. If you're going to be an unaffiliated dog, man, living on the top of this mountain actually might be a pretty sweet deal. It might be pretty good.

People bring you snacks, people get your water.

I wonder what a dog's level of awareness is that it lives near an amazing view. It's probably limited. But you never know, maybe once in a while it catches the glimpse through the trees and just thinks like fuck yeah, fuck yeah dude. This is cool.

Well, this is quite weird. Literally as soon as I said that. Like, oh, there's still people all over the place. Going up, going down. I didn't see fucking anyone after that. How fucking weird. One guy walked down, passed me. Also on the way down. He passed me because I'm being disciplined. I'm walking very slow. Very slow. Hey, kitty. Yeah, it's just a little, I guess, I don't want to exaggerate, I guess, then. This place is not hopping all night. It does appear once it gets dark. People are like, alright, we gotta wrap it up. But, yeah, it's getting darker and darker. And these lights make it no problem. Super duper, no problem. But I don't know, I just thought that was kind of funny. I really was seeing tons of people. And then just like, where did everyone go? For the next, like, 15 fucking minutes. I didn't see anybody. It's like, that's eerie. 30:00 But everything I said remains true. Super well lit. Super well sign posted. Super easy to navigate. Even at night. No problem.

Oh, yeah, I never mentioned this up to this point. But there are huge snails. Hey, buddy. Here's one. Just like really big snails. And they're not even remotely near the water. I guess I don't know a ton about snails. Maybe they don't live near water, I suppose. Because I guess, yeah, North America, they live in gardens and stuff, right? Hey, and there's a frog. Hey, man. Definitely more stuff coming out at night.

But yeah, these snails, much like the cockroaches, I suppose, are like five times bigger than what I would imagine a snail size would be. You know, like a snail in North America. These things are fucking massive. Like from the dinosaur times.

One more update. So it looks like it's not coincidence while of a sudden I didn't see people anymore, because I did actually take a different trail midway down. I guess I did notice this on the way that it saw other people coming up from somewhere and merging. And I was like, where did they come from? So I went down that way on the way back. And that's why I didn't see any people because I wasn't heading to the trailhead. I was heading to the visitor center, which is not that close. It's kind of a ways away. So I came out of the visitor center night time. And it's like, yeah, whatever. I'll just walk over to the trailhead, find a bus stop, a cab just drove by. You know, there's options. There's actually even an okay size sidewalk on this street. You know, I'd prefer not to be walking on the mountain road at night, but it could be worse. It's fully night time now, despite the fact that it is only Jesus Christ. It's not even seven o'clock. It's 658. And it is like fully dark. So good to keep that in mind. None of this 730 business, it literally is by seven. It is dark as fuck.

However, I met this thing called like the treetop walkway or something. And it's an amazing view of the city. And now I'm seeing the city at night. And man, it's pretty because you can't see pollution.

Oh, here's some lights. Somebody else is coming up this path. Perhaps I will subtly follow them since they seem to be going the same way I'm going. And there's a better chance that they know where they're going than I do.

Yes, this is a really pretty view. I mean, you know, it's your standard die. Look at all the little lights. Lots of red lights. Quite a few orange. Again, I can't see a lot of cars moving. There's a highway in the mid-distance that I can see cars. Oh, fireworks. What the fuck are those for? I don't know if you can hear them. I can barely hear them. Yeah, there's fireworks for no reason.

Just small ones, but hey, still, I'll take it.

Yeah, lots of red, lots of orange in the distance and the fire distance. I can't really see any cars moving. Just a teeny bit. The city looks oddly still. Yeah, it's very pretty. Man, you know, I equate so many things to video games, but that's one thing I was always very impressed with with Grand Theft Auto 5, because I mean, that's an old game that came out in 2013. And the way, if you're up on a mountain, this exact scenario, in fact, you're up on a mountain and you look out at the city. If you zoom in enough and really look around, you know, you can see the seams. You can see the repeating assets and you can see that you're not looking at cars at all. You're just looking at little lights that don't necessarily run on a path. It makes sense. But as long as you don't look too close, they did a remarkable job of what a nighttime city looks like at a great distance.

Yeah, this is a nice bonus, man. This is pretty. You know, I'd prefer not to be heading home in the dark, you know, to have the option. I don't think I would want to walk back anyway, though, because, you know, mountain roads. But I don't really have an option now. I got to figure out buses. I guess that guy's not going the way I'm going. He's going back the other way. Oh, here's a dog, though. God, there's so many stray dogs up here. I'm afraid I don't have any food, doggy. I can't help you. 35:00 I mean, the dog's going the way I'm going, but I assume he's not trying to get down to this subway.

I heard that used to be a thing in Russia, though. The Metro dogs, the subway dogs.

Yeah, man, that really is just to be walking along, and there's just a just a fellow traveler, just another dog.

Yeah. Just another traveler. Just a copilot, a dog. It is, it's odd, man. It's an odd feeling.

But I don't know, at least it doesn't seem to be like a sad scenario. These stray animals seem to be doing all right for themselves.

Oh, here's another person. I wonder, let me check on Google Maps.

Is there a bus stop around here? Yeah, if I could hitch my wagon to somebody else, who's also waiting for a bus, that would make me feel a lot better. That I'm not just randomly waiting for a bus that might never come.

Nope, no bus stop yet, but I'm almost back to the mountain entrance.

It's kind of spooky. I mean, you know, I run into random people all the time that, you know, obviously if I spoke the language, it would be less weird, because I could just be like, oh, hey, what's up? So there's quite a bit of just sort of spirits passing, you know, that go on when you're in a foreign country and you can't speak the language. But when it's nighttime on a mountain, overlooking the city, and the other person is just kind of standing and looking at the view and not acknowledging your existence, it does feel a bit like one of us is a ghost. Is it me? Is it her? I don't know. Spooky, though. Pretty spooky.

At this point, I'm starting to get the eerie feeling like that episode on Jeju where I got abandoned because the bus dropped me off halfway home and it turned into a two-part episode where I wandered all through the night. I hope that doesn't happen. So again, if everything fades out right now, then everything was fine. Yeah, here's the entrance, back to the entrance.

So if there's going to be a bus stop anywhere, it's going to be near here.

Back past the karaoke place. So far, this has actually been pretty easy. I know I saw a bus stop with an LCD screen somewhere along here.

I've realized that there's these signs that are like a blue hand. It's like a gloved hand, hamburger helper style hand, like a white hand, I guess, outlined in blue. Those are the bus stops. I didn't realize I should walk past a couple. But they didn't have any indicator of when the next bus is coming. However, I haven't seen any buses go by, so I haven't missed any. That's for sure. So I guess I'll wait till I get to this LCD one and see what it has to say, but this is actually very chill. Now that it's dark, like there's a very occasional traffic, still mostly scooter-based, an occasional car. But yeah, this actually is really well lit. It doesn't feel that bad. I'm starting to think maybe I will just walk. I don't know. I mean, it'll take me a couple hours, but obviously I won't go through the little mountain road this time. I'm just going to stick to the main road.

More mystery music.

Actually, maybe that's the same place. Maybe I just circled around to the back of it. That song sounded familiar. But yeah, this honestly isn't that bad. And it's just so weird, because it is like entirely pitch black. I'm looking at those cool, the backside of the mountain that I saw before. Except now, it's just a silhouette. It's just a super dark, almost invisible silhouette in the sky. But despite the fact that it's crazy dark, the thing is winter in Japan when it got crazy dark at 5.30 at night. 40:00 This is not that different. It's only still a bit after 7. Even if it does take me a couple hours to walk to a subway from here. Yeah, oh, here we go. The 7.85, here's the LCD screen place. But again, I don't even know where these fucking things go. It looks like it ended at 6.10. So it's out of service. Now the number 20, I'd have to wait 37 minutes for it. And it only goes till 8 o'clock. So yeah, this next one might be the last one. And again, where does it go? Who the fuck knows? I can't just stand here for 37 minutes just in the hopes that a bus comes when I've never taken a bus ever in this country. I've certainly never taken this bus route. You know, I presume I can just use my tiny little funny egg card from the subway. But it's kind of a weird situation. If for whatever reason, the subway card didn't work on this bus route. I don't really have a ton of small change right now even to try to pay for the bus. I don't know how much the bus costs. I don't know nothing. But I've had bad experiences with that sometimes. If you wait for the bus and just doesn't come for whatever reason, something goes wrong. Especially when it's a route you're not familiar with. I mean, that one. I mean, if it's an LCD screen, it says 37 minutes. It's probably true. But along those lines, yeah, it's 7.22 now. So I mean, if I just keep an eye on the clock, you know, if I just stay on this route. I could always wait at a bus stop further down the line, but I have a feeling. I mean, once I put 35 more minutes of walking in. Yeah, I think I think this is it. I think I'm just walking. But again, it's just it's actually kind of nice. You know, it really is just so it's just a little scooter man.

Yeah, it's just very chill. This just doesn't feel bad. I don't feel bad at all walking on this street. This is very easy to stay out of the traffic's way. It's very well lit. And yeah, it's just it's just not late. It's it's not late. It's just dark.

So yeah, I think walking it is. What do you know? I really didn't expect that. I don't know. I just thought like whoops, stuck up on the mountain, getting dark, stranded and abandoned.

But as the crow flies, I got a couple of subway options. I can either go back to the red bridge and go to the red line or I can try to go over to the yellow line.

But I think that's my plan. Just a lot of walking, which is what I do all the time anyway. What I would do if it was daytime. There's no question. I would just walk this. And yeah, I'm impressed. I'm impressed with how well lit Taipei is.

It's like a mountain. This is fine. Yeah, it just starting to get kind of odd. How much it's becoming apparent that basically just Japan doesn't give a fuck. I'm thinking of like, I mean, it was in saga, you know, it wasn't exactly a massively populated area. But yeah, that was the place where I, as I was exiting the waterfall, that was getting pretty dark. I did have a couple of flood lamps in there. But then it just got darker and darker and darker until I was walking down a highway with almost no lights.

And then I got to some kind of weird farming area with no lights. And it's just like shit. But to be honest, I mean, it's never really been like that in South Korea or here so far. I haven't been in Taiwan long.

In South Korea, you really kind of got to go out of your way to get trapped in the dark. I mean, to be fair, I guess I did that in Japan too. But now there's no question. Japan is just kind of more rugged overall, just in general. Less lights, less signs, less developed pathways. Not a bad thing. It's kind of cool in a way. It's kind of neat to just be a little more, just let nature be nature, you know. But when you get stuck in a bit of a pickle, it is nice to just be like, this is actually fine. This is not that tough.

It's all right. Time to listen to a podcast, one year on the podcast, one year on the road, just to make sure nobody coming up behind me, smacks into me and sends me to my doom.

And then just a bunch of walking. I even still have water left. Man, though, these fucking, it's unbelievable these jeans. I feel like it has to be a combination of... Of it has to have been that the washing machine is not doing a very good wash on top of the bicycle guy. Yes, the other thing too, I guess once it got dark, I still noticed quite a few bicycle people. That's when I started thinking like, oh, maybe this won't be that bad. 45:00 If they don't feel like it's too dark out to be doing this bike route, then maybe it's not that hard to navigate out here. And indeed, it's not. It gets really well lit, man. These lights are really bright.

I guess maybe that's a good example too, like that park I went to in, oh shit, what was that neighborhood called? But where I just went to a random park at night, and it was so scary, I felt like I was in a horror movie. Where this feels like I'm in a mall. This feels like I'm in a mall with a lot of trees, a lot of plants inside the mall. That was a full-on motorcycle, full-size.

Yeah, this is a parent combination of the washing machine, not washing very well, and then the humidity causing my clothes to stay wet for two fucking days. Everything that was in my pockets, I had some dried plum and dried mango, but then I pulled the packages out of my pocket, and it's like, oh god, they smelled terrible. And I still got a bit left on my water bottle. I timed it out just right with the water, but it's okay. It's like, I take the water bottle out of my back pocket, then I put the water bottle in my hand to drink it, and then my hand has this awful smell. It's just like, bullf, it's different from the sweat smell. And I don't know, I think it's worse. I don't know, it's weird to try to compare bad smells, but anyway, this is fucking nuts. I cannot do this anymore. I figured it out though. I figured out my jeans conundrum as I was hiking. I was just trying to figure out how to, with only two pairs of pants, but needing to wear one of the pairs of pants while I do laundry. How do I avoid wearing gross smelling pants?

And it's not even that tricky, because I don't have to do a full load of laundry yet. I only have to do half a load, but I just have to do it right away, because everything is smelling gross. Everything that I see are radically clean smells terrible. So if I go do laundry, I just keep these pants on now. These gross pants, these are the ones I'm going to wear tomorrow while I do laundry.